## Facts

- Two consolidated federal admiralty limitation proceedings arose from a vessel collision on October 29, 1981, about eight miles off Cuba.
- M/V **STENA FREIGHTER** was sailing from Miami to Panama; M/V **SEIRYU** was sailing from the Panama Canal to Houston.
- The collision sank the SEIRYU and caused substantial property loss; there were no fatalities.
- The court first held a choice-of-law hearing and ruled that **Article 4 of the 1910 Brussels Collision Convention** governed allocation of liability between the vessels.
- The case proceeded to a bench trial limited to liability-related questions (fault allocation, exoneration/limitation, and principal cargo-liability questions); damages were deferred.
- SEIRYU cargo interests settled with SEIRYU interests and continued claims only against STENA-related interests.

## Issues

1. Whether the collision resulted from fault by one vessel or both, and how fault should be allocated between them.
2. Whether Article 4 of the Brussels Collision Convention required apportionment of liability according to comparative fault.
3. Whether either vessel’s owners/charter interests were entitled to exoneration or limitation of liability based on whether the causal faults were within the owners’ privity or knowledge.
4. How the fault allocation and any limitation rulings affected liability to cargo claimants.

## Decision

- The court denied exoneration to both vessel interests and found **both vessels at fault** for the collision.
- Applying Brussels Collision Convention **Article 4**, the court allocated fault **60% to the burdened (give-way) vessel** and **40% to the privileged (stand-on) vessel**.
- The court treated the key causal conduct as navigational/operational errors, including a last-minute course change by the burdened vessel into the other vessel’s track and failures by the privileged vessel to meet continuing navigational duties.
- The court resolved liability-phase issues while reserving damages determinations for later proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Under **Brussels Collision Convention art. 4**, when two vessels are at fault, each is liable in proportion to the degree of its fault rather than by automatic equal division.
- The **burdened (give-way) vessel** bears primary responsibility to keep clear; late course alterations into the other vessel’s path are heavily weighty in comparative-fault analysis.
- A **privileged (stand-on) vessel** can still share liability if it fails to maintain a proper lookout, use available navigational tools, or take reasonable action once risk of collision becomes apparent.
- In U.S. limitation proceedings, liability may be limited if the causative negligence occurred **without the owner’s privity or knowledge**; bridge-level navigational errors generally point toward operational fault rather than management-level fault.

## Conclusion

The court applied the Brussels Collision Convention’s comparative-fault rule to a two-ship collision, found both vessels negligent, apportioned liability 60/40 (greater fault to the give-way vessel), denied exoneration, and left damages and subsequent allocation matters for later stages of the consolidated limitation proceedings.


In re Seiriki Kisen Kaisha, 629 F. Supp. 1374 (S.D.N.Y. 1986)